Three former police officers in Memphis, Tenn., were acquitted of state charges on Wednesday, more than two years after they were accused of brutally beating Tyre Nichols and causing his death.
The jury found the three defendants — Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, and Justin Smith — not guilty on all seven charges after deliberating for over eight hours. The charges included second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct, and official oppression. The trial was held in Memphis for nine days.
The three men still face time in prison after their conviction on witness tampering in a separate federal trial last fall, although they were acquitted of the more serious charges in that case as well. They are expected to be sentenced in the federal case next month.
Nichols, a 29-year-old black man, ran away from five officers after they pulled him out of his vehicle at a traffic stop on January 7, 2023. The officers used a taser and pepper spray to subdue Nichols, who was speeding, but he fled the scene toward his mother’s home. They later caught up with Nichols and could be seen in video footage kicking and hitting him with a baton as they struggled to handcuff him.
Nichols died three days later from his injuries, with an autopsy attributing his death to blunt force trauma to the head. The five officers, who played a role in his death, were also black.
The incident immediately sparked national outcry against police brutality and calls for reform in law enforcement, even generating criticism from President Donald Trump at the time.
“The video was pretty graphic,” Trump told reporters in January 2023, when he was campaigning for the presidency. “Unless there’s something that isn’t shown, it would certainly be a terrible thing that they did, terrible.”
Because former Memphis police officers Desmond Mills Jr. and Emmitt Martin pleaded guilty to the state charges, they did not stand trial alongside Bean, Haley, and Smith. The two also pleaded guilty in federal court, where sentencing for all five officers remains pending.
The defense attorneys argued the whole situation could have been avoided if Nichols did not resist arrest. Nichols likely resisted arrest because credit and debit cards that did not belong to him were still in his car when stopped by police, said one of the defense attorneys, who also blamed Martin for most of the violence inflicted on Nichols.
“This is Emmitt Martin’s and Tyre Nichols’s doing,” Martin Zummach, who represents Smith, said during closing arguments on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, prosecutors argued the five officers used excessive, deadly force in attempting to restrain Nichols and were criminally responsible for each others’ actions. They also contended the officers should have told medical personnel that Nichols had been repeatedly struck in the head, which they did not disclose.
Civil rights attorneys Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, who represent Nichols’s family, expressed disappointment in the jury’s decision to acquit the three officers standing trial.
“Today’s verdicts are a devastating miscarriage of justice,” they said in a joint statement following the not-guilty verdict. “The world watched as Tyre Nichols was beaten to death by those sworn to protect and serve. That brutal, inhumane assault was captured on video, yet the officers responsible were acquitted.”
Memphis District Attorney Steve Mulroy said Nichols’s family was understandably “devastated” and “outraged” by the verdict. While respecting the jury’s decision, he believed there was enough evidence to convict the defendants.
“Was I surprised that there wasn’t a single guilty verdict on any of the counts or any of the lesser-included offenses, given the overwhelming evidence that we presented? Yes, I was surprised,” Mulroy said. “Do I have an explanation for it? No.”